


New New Doctor

by bentleys



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-16
Updated: 2013-02-16
Packaged: 2017-11-29 13:04:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/687270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bentleys/pseuds/bentleys
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor is having a little bit of a crisis. Not a full-blown one, mind, but just a decent, entirely manageable mid-sized one. (Coda to the second season episode "New Earth").</p>
            </blockquote>





	New New Doctor

The Doctor is having a little bit of a crisis. Not a full-blown one, mind, but just a decent, entirely manageable mid-sized one.

He’s not really sure what the problem is, because, well, he’s _clever._ He’s the Doctor! He is very, _very_ , a-thousand-thoughts-at-the-same-moment clever. It’s just that, sometimes amid all the millions of memories to be processed at once, neurons firing faster than the brains of humans will ever, ever, be capable of—sometimes things get lost. Sometimes he _misses_ things.

It’s, quite frankly, embarrassing. And as much as he’d like to blame it on his Gallifreyan lineage, he can’t completely, because it’s something he’s always done. His friends, Koschei and Ushas and them, (back when they were actually Koschei and Ushas and them, he adds moodily) used to call him on it all the time, and now it’s half the reason he needs companions. Sometimes it takes someone with a smaller world view to see the big picture. (Ushas would probably say something like, “it would take someone a bit less caught up in their own cleverness,” but then, look how _she_ turned out? In love with her experiments and probably eaten by one of her own dinosaurs or something, serves her right.) Human companions are useful for that sort of thing. Rose certainly is—she has a way of wandering straight into something important. It’s honestly rather impressive.

So yes, he hadn’t noticed right away when Cassandra possessed her. He’d had a lot on his mind! Wondering how the patients were healing so impossibly, wondering where the little shop had got to—you know, important stuff! One can’t be expected to analyze one’s traveling partners for possible possessions every time they pop out for a few ticks. (There was precedent, though, and that one time with Romana—oh, but he’d unraveled that eventually and they’d spent the night watching early 22nd century Earth flicks, no harm done.) And it wasn’t like he hadn’t cottoned on eventually!

It had been with her kindness, of course it had, though he’d caught glimpses of it before then. Rose Tyler is impossibly, impossibly kind, and when that kindness has saved your life in about a thousand different ways you’re going to notice when it’s gone. And Rose would’ve cared, would’ve fought and cried and begged the Doctor to rescue the ‘patients.’ (It’s amazing how she still thinks he always can.) He had, too, and the warmth he’d felt had crawled up inside him and nested around his hearts. Oh, world-saving is _fantastic._

Of course, it’s probably doesn’t even bother Rose that he didn’t know it. Cassandra had tried to kill her on multiple occasions and used her body like a hermit crab’s shell, but Rose only ever got angry when Cassandra was in the Doctor. But that’s Rose for you, and the well-wishes she’d given Cassandra when they dropped her off for the last time were completely genuine. (She’s the forgiving sort. Has to be or she wouldn’t have stuck around.)

All of this does not make the Doctor feel any less wretched. He should _really_ notice when his companions aren’t his companions! (Is there a book he can get on that? “Detecting Possessions for People Too Immersed in Their Own Cleverness to Notice,” maybe?)

So he says, “Hey,” to her, casually, as he sets the TARDIS spinning back to New Earth. (He’s thinking a picnic on the apple-grass, maybe. There’s time in the day yet, but they could do with a spot of relaxation.)

“Hey,” she grins up at him, all pink and yellow and smiles. He knows that she’s filled with warmth from their success, too.

He tugs his ear with one hand. “Right, so, sorry about that, down there.”

“Hmm?”

He waves a hand in her vague direction. “You know—not figuring out it was Cassandra in your body sooner.”

Rose purses her lips and nods. Then, inexplicably, she starts to giggle. (From what he’s seen, this is common amongst young people, though he’s got no clue as to why. He doesn’t remember having any particular inclination to chortle wildly when _he_ was young, but then he’s always been a bit of a wet rag.)

“What?” he asks, genuinely bemused.

She looks up at him through her hair, her amusement barely concealed behind her hand. “Did you really think I’d just—what, put on a fake version of my own accent and give you a great big smack on the lips?”

He restarts his attempt to detach his earlobe. “Well—I mean—it’s not _totally_ implausible—what, am I not pretty enough?” (He doesn’t touch on the accent. He’d just changed his own, and, well… well, it’d made sense to him at the time, okay?)

Rose laughs again. “Pretty self-possessed.”

“Oy!” he pouts, running his hands up his abdomen. (Self-possessed? As if! He’s said it before and he’ll say it again—his outward appearance is of no importance whatsoever. But it’s not like he doesn’t _notice_ when he looks particularly nice, you know.) “But I’m slim! And—what was it? Foxy!”

Rose’s eyes are bright. “And I guess you really _are_ beating out a samba.”

“You _like_ it,” the Doctor purrs, trying his best to imitate Cassandra’s drawl.

Rose bites her lip. “I’m not complainin’,” she says, stepping closer, and the Doctor notices there’s a faint hint of a blush on her cheeks. And then he stops noticing much of anything because she pulls his head down and kisses him.

It’s not like Cassandra’s kiss. It’s gentler and _pinker,_ and it makes his head go all spinny on the inside. “This is you, right?” he asks between kisses, because he should probably be sure about that from now on. (No, really, someone needs to remind him to keep checking. Maybe he’ll set the TARDIS on a timer…)

“All me,” she smiles when she breaks for air. “And you’re not secretly a bitchy trampoline, yeah?”

“No trampolines here,” he says happily, and swings her off her feet for another kiss, every synapse in his brain focused on her, because damned if he’s going to miss even a second of this. Maybe there’s something to be said for forgetting to pay attention every once in a while. After all, then you have to make it better. And he plans to give _that_ task his everything.

(Oh. Oh _dear._ Was that Rose’s _tongue?)_


End file.
